


The King of Wishful Thinking

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memories, insults as endearments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-04
Updated: 2005-11-04
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3635346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've even got a cauldron somewhere. We can heat some water if you'd like to have a bath."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The King of Wishful Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song of the same name by Go West. Set during _Goblet of Fire_.

Sirius was grateful for the warmth of his fur, and more importantly, the shelter of Buckbeak's wings, as he lay on the stone floor of the cave listening to the wind howl outside. While in human form, he'd thought longingly of blankets and scarves, gloves and hats and blazing fires. As a dog, he was most interested in huddling with Buckbeak and trying not to move once the stone under his body warmed from freezing to merely chilly.

He was just drifting off to sleep to dream of better days spent crowded round the fireplace or snuggled warm in bed under a mound of covers when the wind brought him a familiar scent.

Puzzled, he rose slowly and crept to the opening of the cave. In the darkness, he could barely make out the thin figure of a man climbing to the cave, robes and hair whipping in the wind, but scent didn't lie -- even Polyjuice wouldn't change that, not to a dog's sensitive snout.

He barked, and Remus corrected his course slightly, walking briskly. Sirius sat and waited for him, tail thumping impatiently against cold stone. When he finally reached the cave, Remus knelt and buried his face in Padfoot's neck, fingers curling in the warm fur and petting vigorously. Sirius didn't change back. It was easier to be touched like this, and there could be no awkward conversations if he couldn't talk.

"Let's get out of the wind," Remus murmured finally. When they entered, Buckbeak glared balefully at him, but Remus inclined his head respectfully and kept his distance. If he'd thought it possible, Sirius would have said Buckbeak seemed jealous, but that was madness, and Sirius was sure he wasn't mad yet.

Remus raised an eyebrow when he didn't change back, but said nothing. From his pocket he produced a variety of miniature bundles, each of which grew with the tap of his wand -- blankets, clean clothes, a basket of food.

Sirius could smell bread and chicken and tea, and he whined pitifully.

Remus shrugged and started setting food out on the blanket. "Can't let you eat chicken like that," he said. "You'd choke on the bones."

Sirius whined again, but transformed back, an effortless flow of dog to man that never failed to send a thrill racing beneath his skin, even after all these years.

"Warmer as a dog," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse.

Remus pointed to the pile of blankets and clothes. "I've even got a cauldron somewhere." He patted his pockets and came up with some small round items which he enlarged into a cauldron and two chipped ceramic mugs. "We can heat some water if you'd like to have a bath."

Sirius raised an eyebrow as half a dozen suggestive remarks rose to his lips, but he shrugged instead. "I suppose. Don't want to offend Buckbeak's delicate sensibilities."

Remus regarded him calmly, though Sirius would have sworn there was an amused glint in his eyes. "We can build up the fire, sponge you down, at least," he said as if bathing escapees from Azkaban in freezing caves were something he did every day.

Sirius wanted to hit him, furious that he'd been reduced to this, that he couldn't _manage_ right now, that he was sharing a cave with a hippogriff, "and living on rats while Harry _needs me_ and I can't do a fucking thing about it and--"

He didn't realize he was shouting until Remus wrapped his arms around him and said, "Shh," as if gentling a skittish hippogriff or a colicky baby. Harry had been a colicky baby, and Sirius remembered the nights of walking him across the floor of the tiny nursery of James and Lily's first house, the one with the yellow door.

Remus's breath was soft and warm against his neck and Sirius shivered. "Shh," Remus repeated. "Let me help you." Remus soothed him, rubbing circles over his back and shoulders with hands so gentle Sirius started shaking again, as if he were going to come apart at the seams. He breathed in great gulps of air, tinged with the scent of Remus's hair and the sour stench of his own unwashed body, trying to calm himself.

"Okay," he said finally, when he was sure his voice wouldn't shake the way his body was. "Bath."

"Okay," Remus said with a small smile. He built a fire and hung the cauldron over it, then filled it with water from his wand. Sirius remembered having a wand, the feel of warm, smooth wood against his palm and fingers, tingling with magical energy, as comfortable and familiar as his own hand.

"Remus--" he began, but he couldn't figure out what he wanted to say.

"I know," Remus said. "Hush."

Remus pushed the dirty old prison robes off Sirius's shoulders and as they dropped to the floor, dirty rags that had been his skin for so long, Sirius shivered again, cold even with the fire roaring hot beside them, cold from the wind and the loneliness and twelve long years in Azkaban, a chill he doubted would ever leave his bones.

Then Remus was smoothing the sponge, hot and wet and soapy, over his chest. He sucked in his belly, startled at the prominent cage of his ribs, the sharp points of his hipbones. Sometimes he forgot that this was who he was now.

Remus reached up, pushed the hair out of his eyes. "Okay?"

"Tickles," he answered.

Remus pressed a little harder, scrubbing at the grime embedded in Sirius's ash white skin. "Sorry."

"No, you're not." He laughed a little as Remus ran the sponge up his side, because it did tickle and it felt good and he thought if he didn't laugh he might cry, and he couldn't be having with that. "Prat."

"Git," Remus answered, and his voice was as warm as the fire.

As Remus scrubbed at his arms and shoulders, Sirius inhaled the scent of the Muggle soap Remus had always preferred and remembered a time when this sort of activity would have led to kisses and touches, to bending Remus over the kitchen table and fucking him hard and fast while the neighbors complained about the noise.

He remembered vaguely what that felt like, and when Remus knelt to wash his legs, Sirius had to close his eyes, assaulted by memories he'd thought long lost, memories of Remus's fingers, skilled and sure, moving over him; of Remus's mouth, wet and warm, wrapping around him; of Remus's hair soft and tickly against the insides of his thighs. Now, the feel of Remus's fingers, warm and slick with soapy water, sliding up his legs, sent a shock of desire through him, and he started to shake again.

Remus stopped and rose slowly to his feet. "Sirius?"

"I--" He clutched at Remus, and Remus pulled him close again, stroked his hair and crooned to him softly. Sirius was choked with need, but neither his body nor his mind could respond -- the words choked him, dying in his throat, and the sensations skittered over his skin like wind on the mountain, rushing through and never taking hold long enough to give his body a chance to act.

He huddled close to Remus and was struck with another memory, this one of a long-ago morning after the full moon, and Remus clinging to him in a grip so tight it left marks on his skin afterward, shaking and grey from the pain.

Finally, he got himself under control, but he couldn't make his hands release Remus's now damp robes.

Remus smiled gently and brushed Sirius's hair off his forehead again, long fingers trailing tenderly over his cheek and jaw. "Chicken's getting cold," he said, and Sirius's rough bark in response was more laugh than sob, and he forced his fingers to unclench.

Remus finished washing him in a businesslike fashion, no lingering over cock or arse, nothing erotic or lewd in his touch at all, but to Sirius each touch felt like a thousand kisses, sleepy warm and whisper soft, unspoken promises of hope and maybe safety, someday.

He pulled on the clean clothes, which smelled of cheap detergent and secondhand stores, and let Remus give his hair a quick delousing and scrubbing, nearly falling asleep with his head over the cauldron of now-tepid water, letting himself drift off into fantasies of a life spent in a warm house, a comfortable flat, lined with books and leather furniture and smelling of Remus's tea and damp wool jumpers, a life of easy touches and smiling kisses and long comfortable silences broken by talk of nothing more important than Quidditch scores or motorbike repairs. He wondered if such a life were even possible now as he was jerked back to wakefulness by Remus's fingers plucking out burrs and working through snarls.

A quick drying charm finished him off, and Remus stepped back to admire his handiwork with a satisfied nod. He wrapped the soap and sponge in plastic, and tucked it beside the blankets, a reminder that Sirius was human -- they were both human, despite what others might try to make them think. Then he solemnly offered Sirius a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and Sirius couldn't help it, he burst into laughter -- real, true, raucous laughter that left him feeling weak in the knees and sore in the belly, and cleaner even than all of Remus's ministrations.

Remus laughed with him, and reached out to tuck his hair behind his ear when it fell into his eyes.

They spread one of the blankets on the ground and sat cross-legged by the fire, sharing bread and chicken and some soggy chips that didn't take well to magical reheating. Sirius didn't know how to break the silence, if he even wanted to. So much to say and so little of it actually meaningful in the end.

"You could come stay with me," Remus offered after they'd devoured the chicken and tossed Buckbeak the bones. He had his hands wrapped round a mug of steaming tea, and that made it like any other meal they'd ever shared, and nicer than any Sirius had had in the past thirteen years.

"Harry needs me," he answered without hesitation, and Remus nodded.

"I expected you'd say that, but," he looked around the cave, "I'd hoped--"

"After the tournament's over, I'll visit," Sirius promised, and he meant it, stared hard into Remus's eyes as he said it, so Remus would know. "But for now, I need to stay close to Harry." Part of him wished Remus would offer to stay here, in the cave, with him, but he couldn't ask it, and couldn't accept it if he did.

"I'd offer to stay," Remus said, mind running along a parallel track, as it often had when they were younger, "but I don't think Buckbeak likes me." That wasn't the reason, and they both knew it, but that was okay. Sirius understood.

Remus stayed until the fire burned low, and they'd drunk three cups of tea. Sirius felt his eyelids drooping -- full and warm and _content_ in a way he hadn't been in forever -- and Remus unfolded himself from the blanket slowly, a man of thirty-five instead of a boy of fifteen and looking as if he felt every year of his age and then some.

"There's more food in the basket," he said, "and water, and supplies to build a fire the Muggle way, if you can't get _Incendio_ to work without a wand."

"A wand--"

"I'm working on it. Can't exactly go to Ollivander, and black market wands are expensive."

Sirius nodded. "I can have you sent some money from my account if--" He paused. The Remus he'd known thirteen years ago would have vehemently denied the need. The Remus in front of him now just nodded in agreement.

"That would help tremendously," Remus said in the silence of his hesitation, and Sirius wasn't sure whether to weep that his proud Moony was so humble or be proud his stubborn Moony had finally learned to accept help.

He settled for scrawling a note onto a scrap of parchment and shoving it into Remus's hand. "Take that to Gringotts. Shouldn't be a problem."

They stood there awkwardly for a second, and then Remus pulled him close and brushed what felt like a brief kiss over his ear.

"Take care of yourself," Remus whispered.

He ran his hands through Remus's greying brown hair, marveling at the feel of it between his fingers. "You, too."

It took him a moment to let go, and then with a soft crack of Disapparition, Remus was gone, leaving the cave littered with signs of his presence. Sirius was grateful for the gifts he'd brought -- the warmth, the food, the clean clothes.

But most of all, he was grateful for the hope.

end


End file.
